Feedback: If you don't want sex, don't get married

Below is online feedback to Xavier Newton-Bryant's Letter of the Day , 'Marital rape: call it something else', published Thursday, November 6, 2014.

No means no. There is no implied anytime, anywhere consent. You did not buy a blow-up doll. You married a human with feelings and wishes. If you don't grasp that basic fact, you're lacking emotional intelligence.

- Fed Up With Misogyny

Marriage does not make a woman the personal property of the husband. All humans have civil rights that should be respected. A woman is not a toy.

- Boaz

Rape is rape. If the wife says "no", and the man forces her, it is rape. This is not a sophisticated concept. The nature of the relationship between the couple is not relevant. Forced sex is rape.

- Natanya

Let me give you a lesson, sir. Not because a woman signs a marriage contract does she give up her autonomy as a human being. She has the right to decide how and when she will engage in sex. She is not property, no man has the right of ownership of his wife, not in the 21st century.

Furthermore, he does not give up his autonomy by virtue of signing said document. It gives her no right to control his body. Try come with another argument. Rape is rape!

- Babydragon

We agree that husbands must not abuse their wives.

It would, however, seem that the concept of marital rape goes beyond dealing with abuse to include a redefinition of the very concept of what marriage is supposed to be - a union in which a man and a woman become one flesh.

The concept of marital rape effectively dissolves the reality of that union. It would seem to me that rape can only occur in the absence of a pre-existing union, which is not the case in a marriage, so I agree with the author. Call it something else.

Marriage is also a contract, the terms of which will have to be agreed, not assumed.

- rational

Totally agree! Consent was granted when you said, "I DO." What more consent should the man need? I'm not saying the man should abuse his wife, but how many NOES should the husband take? If you don't want sex, don't get married, and don't sleep in the same bed wid de man.

Furthermore, nuff women love to equate sex with money, as if they are prostitutes. So if one day the man says no to paying the bills, there should not be any issues. The man shouldn't be paying the house bills, plus your bills, if he cannot make love to his wife!!

He did not get a roommate, he got a wife! Sex must be had. If I have a husband and we are estranged, I am not sleeping in the same bed with him. Yes, a wife can say no, but how many times really is acceptable? Especially if she not sick. MY VIEWS and, by the way, I'M A WOMAN.

- Nicky

I would argue that the minute a woman or a man decides to seriously deny the partner sex, that union is broken, the agreement no longer exists. At that point, each partner must realise that the 'blanket' consent cannot be enforced.

Anything after the initial refusal could, at that point, be regarded as rape, based on the writer's argument.

- cha24389

Marriage is just an acceptable form of prostitution. The only difference between marriage and what most people see as prostitution is the fact that there is theoretically supposed to be some form of exclusivity. However, at the end of the day, both marriage and prostitution are about men paying women for sex.

- Mack

The discussion might be helped if the activists set out the circumstances in which rape in a marriage can occur or has occurred. As I understand, there have been cases where a couple are estranged but may meet for some discussion. The man claims that he is still legally entitled to sex and forces himself on a reluctant wife. She would consider that non-consensual sex.

The law says, technically, no, you are married, so he is entitled. I wonder what arguments most men would put forward if biology were different and women could forcibly extract things from them? Oops, they already get most of that in divorce settlements. Seems to me there is rape on both sides of the bed.

- Wayne

But isn't it somewhere in the law that a man cannot be convicted for raping his wife? We wouldn't be having this conversation if the law would allow a man to have two wives and two concubines. Maybe I need to move to Saudi Arabia.